This property was about 2+ hours away and just at the outer edge of where we’d be willing to buy. 14 acres and surrounded by public land.

We first had to hike through federal land and realized once we got to the river that there was no way to easily cross to get to the actual property. We had to walk upstream to find a way to get over. Piles of felled trees were the only real way over and it took a long time to navigate and was exciting but also stressful b/c the kiddo and I were wearing slippery shoes and hadn’t been prepared for crawling over mossy, slippery logs to cross the river. We heard that current owners would readily build a bridge for someone purchasing the land (at a mere $15K) and I guess we’d get an easement for road access? The property was absolutely breathtaking and amazing but were in early days and this would be a big project just to build access – much less build a house.
Really special place though.

Still at Raymond, WA property.
We were finally on the property and investigating the area. Roughly 14 acres with river front access (the seller calls it a creek but it felt like a river to me, maybe it dries up enough to be creek-like in the summer).

The trees on the property are huge and architectural – it was beautiful and we felt incredibly isolated. The little man started to panic because it took us at least 20-30 minutes to cross the river slowly and he was anxious about getting back (full confession: I scared him by talking about bears in the area…foolish). The place did make you feel a bit vulnerable. It was amazing.

There is no bridge to the property currently. We crossed over from the public land trail by slowly crossing over slippery and wobbly logs, which was exciting and sometimes scary. Took quite a while to go a short distance. The scenery was breathtaking and while we did see one other person crossing on the public trail but otherwise it was deserted. It’s such a beautiful location and apparently there is good angling in the area so not sure how isolated it feels in the summer.

Once on the property, the rows of felled trees had clear markings from one or more beavers. We found a small path to the water just past these logs where it was clear that a beaver or other small animal was scurrying up and down into the water –the grass was all tramped on too.

We also saw what looked like Elk dung all around the property near the water line.